|
This Page - Gay Christian autobiography regular life updates (blog, blogger).
Search by word, phrase, or topic within this Website.
Website Featured On...
This page hosted by...
|
Is this a Blog? Am I a Blogger? Long before the term "blog" was invented, from this website's beginnings, I included a monthly "diary," an update of my life and events, things I have learned, experienced, shared. Only recently did I begin archiving previous years. I enjoy reading biographies; I like them not just for the interesting life stories, but they assist me in learning from other people's experiences how to handle my own life journey. I hope this (b)log of my life helps you. Some of you might be disappointed, there rarely will be found here any comments about religion or politics, nor any kiss and tell stories, HaHa. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or would like to discuss further something mentioned herein. Thanks, Ben
At the same time, our son's grandfather went into hospital; he had been in declining health for a long time, but it was a surprise. In November, I took him and my ex-mother-in-law to our son's band concert at the University. He had a wonderful time, a wonderful day with his grandson, chatting and remembering his years at the same university so long ago. None of us at the time realized he would pass away less than a month later. But, because he went to our son's Band Concert, it helped give a positive closure for both our son and me, too. He was a great man, and I greatly appreciate both his and his wife's re-acceptance of me after the divorce and coming out; not many people can say they have the love and acceptance of their ex-in-laws, and to travel across the state together to attend a Band Concert. At the time he was in hospital, our son was in the middle of finals at the University. It was a day by day evaluation of whether our son would finish finals before his grandfather died, and when to tell him if he died, and at the same time not stress him and effect his finals (we did tell him he was in hospital, and not doing well). It was also a day by day evaluation of whether we could even drive to the University to pick him up and bring him home due to the snow and the coming ice storm. All three converged at the same time, and I had to drive over to Kansas City and drop off presents, tell our son his grandfather died, our son's University lost power in the ice storm, and I had to drive through the snow to pick him up and bring him home. My father came for the Holiday, arriving between snow storms, and less than three hours after he left after Christmas it snowed again. My father, our son, and I went to Chris' mother's house near Christmas Eve, to spend with all his family, and exchange gifts. In addition, everyone came from all over the United States for the funeral, so our son, my father, Chris, and I also got to see many members of all sides of the family, many we have not seen in many years. I baked cookies, made peanut brittle using one of my Irish Great Aunt's recipe, made our traditional Christmas Eve meal, and the dinner for Christmas Day; I was a busy cook in the kitchen for days. So, Christmas was sad, a little stressful, but beautiful at the same time, a white Christmas, with nice presents, nice togetherness, and excellent grades (3.5 GPA) for our son's first semester at University.
The rest of the Thanksgiving Holiday was spent Christmas Shopping, Chris, our son, and I out and about, exhausting ourselves with the crowds, store after store, looking for sales and bargains. I saw Father Christmas at one shopping mall that looked "real;" he had real hair, glasses, and very fancy clothes with fur trim. I stopped and looked at him. He saw me, winked and waved at me. So, he "might" have been the real one. Chris and our son just rolled their eyes, went on to the next store, ignoring me. But, you never can tell, one of them just might be the real one; so, better to play on the safe side I always say. My supervisor at work surprised me and everyone else by announcing she's taken another job, and left. In the meantime, the head of the agency will be our temporary supervisor. When the supervisor I had before her left, I was concerned, afraid we might get someone who would not have a background in working with our type of patrons, nor have a background of understanding libraries nor supporting them. Luckily, she was already in the agency, moved up into the position, so those fears never materialized. This time around, I could have those same concerns, but I do not. I realize there is not much I can do about any of it anyway, I will get who I get, and will have to deal with or adapt to the choice. I further have more confidence in my abilities, in order to preserve my program's level of service, to be able to sell and justify my program to the new supervisor if necessary. I share this because I find it an example of how we all can and should ever strive and be trying to grow and mature within. I find my reaction now interesting in comparison to what it was last time those many years ago. The end of the month, I got the Christmas tree up and decorated, and also decorated the rest of the apartment and Chris' townhouse, too. Last year I purchased a new Christmas tree, one of the tall thinner styles to better fit my small apartment's living room. Since I have dozens of antique Christmas decorations, many of the antique glass balls or blown glass decorations, I decided to decorate the tree to match the age and style of most of the ornaments. I purchased several strings of the older style bulb lights, small glass ball garlands. So, the Christmas tree looks similar to the ones common in the 1940s (similar to the Christmas tree you see in the movie the Christmas Story), minus the silver tinsel they used to throw on the branches. I do not see silver tinsel for sale anymore, so I wonder if they still make it; but, I would not use it anyway. I remember throwing it on the tree when I was young, and my mother scolding me, telling me not to throw it but to "...hang each one individually...," which just took forever to do. This year, I decided to also get out my Lionel Electric Train Set, and set it up around the bottom of the Christmas tree; it is size "O", with the larger size engine, cars, and tracks; if I put out all of the tracks it can cover almost the whole living room. I got it for Christmas when I was about eight years old; so, now it is about forty years old or more, and still works fine... kind of like me... sort of... hopefully... Ha Ha.
Chris and I took a weekend day trip up to the city of Atchison, Kansas. It is one of the first cities in Kansas, and where the Santa Fe Railroad, and the Pillsbury Flour Mills go their start, along with being the home of several famous people, including Amellia Earhart. Atchison is the farthest west Abraham Lincoln every traveled in his life, gave a speech there on the Courthouse steps. There are dozens of old large mansions, and the entire town is aflame in the Fall, with reds, oranges, and yellows from the large ancient trees. There are several antique and designer decorating stores. We ate lunch at an Italian restaurant that has been in the family since the 1880s. Chris kind of lets me do the holiday decorating, and Fall is my favorite season. Thus, both his townhouse and my apartment had lots of fall and Halloween decorations, some of them antique Holiday decorations I have collected or inherited. Halloween itself every year is always spent with Chris' mother, whose birthday is on Halloween.
Labor Day weekend is also our anniversary. I picked up a "Modonna and Child" painting for Chris while I was in Europe a couple years ago, finally got it formally framed, and gave it to him for our anniversary. Chris got me an annotated book of Alice In Wonderland, with its history, and analysis of the meaning of the words and phrases (exciting to me, but a yawn to non-nerds, of course), and several pieces of Fiesta china in the new "Evergreen" color. My first project planned, after our son went off to college, was to go through every drawer and closet, even in the kitchen. If it did not have any historic or family value, was not "really" needed, or regularly used... out the door it went. I mean, really, when was the last time I used that cookie tin, anyway. Unfortunately, the project only took about a week; but I must say just about every drawer and closet are now half empty... or is it half full? I can never remember which tense is correct. These various projects I set aside to do, after our son went off to college, are not taking as long as I thought. But, I have one large project that I know will take time, reorganizing the family's photo and memorabilia albums. I noticed the albums they are in now are not on archival paper, and the albums are starting to effect the photographs and other things. So, I want to move them to new protective albums, digitally scan all of the photographs (some dating back to the 1800s and are tin-types), and archival protect all of the documents, and negatives. I have everything gather together. Now, it is just a matter of slowly purchasing the albums and supplies, as time and my budget will allow. I am not lonely, nor do I miss our son dreadfully... just a normal amount. Being an only child, I have always been used to being alone, and only children naturally are always self-entertaining, we keep ourselves busy with various hobbies, interests, and projects. I am always reading a book, working on some music, and other things. Plus, there is the television, DVDs to watch, listen to BBC Radio, and enjoy episodes of my favorite programs. I miss my son most at dinner time, he and I would often make dinner together, talk about our day, plans, and activities; now, when I finish my day at work, I realize there is no longer any need to hurry to get home and start dinner. I told Chris it would be an adjustment for us, too. Now, when we see each other, and ask what we've been doing, we both have the same answers... "not much, laundry, work, and television." We no longer have the daily and weekend activities of our son to keep us busy, or to endlessly talk about. Just like with straight couples whose children have left the nest, so with us; we are beginning the process of re-discovering each other, and ourselves. We will both need to continue to find individual activities, hobbies, and interests, and those which we both can enjoy together. September ended with "Family Day" at our son's university. It is the weekend when parents can come visit the campus, speak to professors, various activities, and see if your child is keeping his dorm room clean, HaHa. It also fell near my birthday, and so we all went out for lunch together after seeing the sights, and his dorm room... which was spotless... that day. For my birthday, Chris got me a new smashing red toaster, the old one broke two years ago, and I needed a new one to make muffins for a proper tea... bring on the butter and Orange Marmalade With Irish Whiskey Jam... yes! Our son gave me some money to apply towards purchasing the new season of Doctor Who on DVD that comes our soon... woo-hoo. On my real birthday, which was a couple of days later, I spent it as I usually do now that I am "old"... in bed with the covers pulled up over my head, holding on to "teddy" with dear life... yes, you read correctly... my Burberry tartan wearing white teddy bear (which raises the whole question of whether I am really old or not; my son just puts a decimal between the two digits in my age, and says that "...explains everything").
Of course, now Chris and I have no life, sort of. We have been raising our son almost his entire life, ever since he was very little. Now, it seems quiet, and we find ourselves with a more open calendar. I will continue to have the apartment in Topeka, and Chris living in our real home in Kansas City; it is just financially easier for me to reside in Topeka during the week than it would be to commute every day. We will probably continue this arrangement until our son finishes college, which will pretty much match the same year and day that I could retire from my job in Topeka. Chris and our friends have expressed some concerns for me, being totally alone now. For all of these many years, Chris has been living mostly alone during the week, and then with our son and I on the weekends. Meanwhile, I was living with our son weekdays, and then seeing Chris weekends. With our son off to college now, Chris' lifestyle pretty much remains the same, but mine changes from having our son around all the time, to living alone. I have been used to our son and I making dinner and watching television together, chatting together, and doing activities and errands together. Now, I am getting used to cooking and spending weekday evenings alone. Our friends, and even Chris, have said it will be a big change for me, difficult to adjust to it. But, I keep reminding everyone that I am an "only child." Only children are used to being alone. I grew up alone, mostly around adults, having my own room, hobbies, and interests. Only children think nothing of shopping, seeing a movie, or eating dinner in a restaurant alone. Only children are always self-occupied, always have some hobby or interest to keep them busy, working on some project. I have deliberately put off several projects I have needed to do, so I could do them, devote more time to them, after our son went off to college. So, I will be fine. But, I do think I will have more difficulty finding things to write about in this monthly diary; life will become pretty routine, work, home, work, home, with occasional interesting activities, and visits home by our son.
The rest of the events of the month were rather routine, just work, laundry, reading, television, and spending time with Chris and our son.
In the middle of June, we enrolled our son in college. They had separate meetings for parents and children, and it was amusing to watch the "helicopter" parents constantly checking up on their children by cellphone. I know Chris and I will have some adjustments after college starts this Fall, but at the same time, we have many projects, hobbies, and interests to keep us busy. Keeping us busy right now is making plans for what our son will need for his dorm room. We have been window shopping on weekends to different stores, getting ideas for things he will need, like bedding, small refrigerator, laundry basket, storage bins for his CDs and DVDs, on and on; luckily, our son won a microwave at his high school prom, so that is one less thing we have to purchase. In July, we will learn the identity of his college roommate, and talk to him and his family to see what things they will be buying and bringing, so that maybe we can pool our resources, share some items. Once we know these things, we can begin purchases. My arthritis has been flaring up lately, seems to not matter if it is hot or cold, wet or dry, physically active for a period of time or not, I cannot really figure out why it flares up sometimes, and not other times. Anyway, it really attacked my left elbow, swelled up. Chris and our son talked me into going to the doctor about it; I was afraid, fearing he would stick me with a needle to drain off the fluid. I bravely went it, and he did not, said it would gradually go away. Instead, he changed my medications to stronger versions, told me to take a month off of doing anything that would further strain the elbow, and then see a specialist at the end of July to see how the new medications are doing. I felt better about it, did not so much learn anything new, as just nice to be able to get some useful guidance to manage it. The month concluded with another continual week of rain, rain, and flooding; one small town south of us got twelve inches of rain in a single day. It is all very strange, and it makes you wonder what is going on with the climate. But, I am not sure I agree it is caused just by people. As a history major, I know the earth's climate was warmer than normal from about 400 A.D. until around 1200 A.D. During those centuries, agriculture, industry, and cultures expanded, i.e. Roman Empire, the emergence of Europe from the Dark ages, with organized governments, trade, and culture. Greenland got its name because it really was green, several cities and farming settlements there by the Vikings. In France, they were concerned about the better quality of grapes and wine being produced in... England. Such things seem strange today, England is not that warm, and Greenland is a vast sheet of ice. After 1200 A.D. the earth started cooling again. From 1600-1810, there existed what has come to be called the "Little Ice Age," when governments in France, England, America, and Europe went through revolts and changes, brought on by crop failures, people starving, a break down in trade and community. So, perhaps we are returning to the climate of the warmer period once again? Who knows for sure. But, obviously we can and do effect it, and we can do better at controling our imput.
The beginning of the month was Chris' birthday, took him out to dinner and bought him several cookbooks he wanted. The end of the month, Chris and I planned a week off together, during the Memorial Day Holiday, to do some geneological work for his family, visit our family cemeteries. As we traveled across a couple of states, we would also window shop at whatever antique stores, antique malls, or towns known for their antique shops that we found. But, the weather never cooperated; rain, flooding, rain, slick highways, water over roads, and did I mention rain? Rain almost every day for two weeks, and now they say more is coming. Instead, we ended up doing work around the house, cleaning, sorting through some things, organizing, putting together some shelving units we bought at Target, and seeing a couple of movies.
The end of April was my father's 84th birthday. Chris, our son, and I traveled to spend a long weekend with him. We took him out to dinner. Our son did yard work for him, while Chris and I did a good Spring cleaning for him. My dad said he had a very nice visit with us. On the way back home we stopped in a couple of cities, and visited some antique malls and stores. Chris found a couple of items, and even our son found an antique comic book for himself. Otherwise, April was pretty routine, typical work and helping our son with his school assignments. Several evenings were spend addressing our son's high school graduation announcements, and preparing for May, when he graduates.
The college our son selected sponsored a Parent's Day on Monday, President's Day. Chris, our son, and I were all scheduled to attend. It included lunch, appointments with our son's advisor, tour of the campus and the dormitories. But, like I was sick last month, this month Chris got sick. He was so disappointed, and was trying so hard to get well so he could go. We gathered lots of information we needed for preparations for this Summer, for enrollment, what things to buy for our son's dorm room, etc. In between all of this, we had a very, very cold, nasty, snowy month. We have been spoiled these last few years with warmer than normal Winters. This was the first time in several years I had to cancel driving to Kansas City to see Chris on a weekend, due to weather and snow. Then, I actually got snowed in at home for several days, not able to get out to go to work due to the ice. We were lucky to just have bitter cold and no ice or snow on our Valentine's Day weekend.
The reason why I have a short three-day style beard is because of bronchitis. I used to get it a lot when I was young, several times each Winter. One year I got such a bad case I was sick for a month, and I was using up every work sick leave and vacation day I had. One day, I was worn out, depressed, and cried out to God asking for mercy, and a healing touch. Suddenly, it felt like someone was in the room, and I grew very cold. I took my temperature, and not only had my fever instantly broke, it was lower than normal. I was back to work within a day. During the time I was sick, I obviously could not shave, coughing all the time. So, as a rememberance for what God did for me, I vowed never to shave again. For the rest of January, I sat frustrated, unable to get to Kansas City to see Chris. First, I was gone over the Holidays, then when I got back I got sick, and then a terrible snow storm rolled through the area. So, I missed him terribly, and finally got to spend time together at the end of the month. Also, I was busy at work trying to catch up on the paperwork that piled up while I was sick, and also travelled to a couple of meetings across the State because I am the Chairman of one of the State's Library Boards this year. Our son started his last Semester of High School, finishing up his required classes. We got our income taxes done quickly, because we needed the completed information to file for our son's Federal Student Financial Aid. So far, our son has qualified for one scholarship. We still have one or two scholarship applications to complete. By the end of May, we should know our financial standing, and be ready for college enrollment.
Copyright 2008-1997.
To Regulate the Music Playing On This Page |
WEBSITE
Copyright 2008-1997. All Rights Reserved. 
Graphics & Music Used Are Believed Public Domain Unless Otherwise Noted. Some Graphics Courtesy Of...
Snow, snow, and sadness. We almost broke a record for snow in December this month. We have had so many warm winters the last several years, this took everyone by surprise; the month even included a major ice storm, too. It also included the death of my ex-father-in-law, our son's grandfather. Every weekend I was supposed to travel to Kansas City to see Chris, and go Christmas shopping, I got snowed in. Everyone likes the way I wrap Christmas presents, so I brought all of the presents we purchased, including all of the ones for Chris' family, back home to wrap; then, I got stuck week after week unable to take them all back, worried Christmas would come and Chris' family's packages would still be here.
Our son came home from college twice in November. First, at the beginning of the month to get his hair cut; or rather, get it colored and cut... bright reddish brown. Hmmmm. People already said he and I look alike; now, we look like clones. In fact, we often tease each other by calling the other, "...my evil clone." The second time he came home was for the Thanksgiving Holiday. He spend part of it with his friends and grandparents, and the rest of it with Chris and I. We spend Thanksgiving day and meal with Chris' family, at his mother's home. In attendance was also Chris' brother, his wife, two children, his wife's parents, and his wife's best friend. A large gathering, and I helped carve two turkeys. Everyone always raves about Chris' mother's stuffing, which was handed down from her mother. The joke about the stuffing is she only very recently told anyone what was in it... califlower, which neither Chris nor his brother like. If they would have known it growing up, they probably would not have eaten it. It is one of those odd ingredients you find in recipes now and then, whose main purpose is to keep cakes or breads moist; it cooks out, leaving no taste of themselves. Chris says I need to learn how to make it. I will; but, I hope he will learn to also like the traditional simple stuffing I learned how to make from my mother, passed how from her mother. Our son was the big hit of the day. Chris' brother has twins, age five, and the twins love our son. Our son spent a lot of time playing with them, even carrying them around on his back as a "horsey." I think our son will make a good father someday.
Rain. Kansas and Missouri has gotten more than its share of rain this year. Chris and I took off work the entire week of the Memorial Day holiday. Our plan was to visit his family's graves, and the graves of members of my family that are buried in America, taking little day trips, and along the way stopping at any antique malls or stores we encountered. Instead, we were trapped by days and days of terrible rains and flooding. We only had one day where we were able to travel to Chris' family graves. Just as Chris was finishing taking pictures of the graves for his geneological research, I noticed a herd of cattle in the next field trying to huddle under some trees with their backs to us. I looked in the direction opposite, and saw a hugh storm coming; we sat in the car a long time while it rained buckets and buckets all around us. We decided to make the best of it, and used the time to do some work at home, purchased some shelving for our growing book collection, put them together and into place.
Graduation month. In the middle of the month, our son graduated from high school, Honor Roll, top twenty percent of his class, 3.89 grade point average; can you tell we are very proud? HaHa. He will be attending college this Fall, received a scholarship and several financial grants. Chris and I hosted a graduation party for him at our Clubhouse, with pizza, cake, soft drinks, chips, and access to the swimming pools. After his actual graduation, we also hosted a reception for family and close friends. It was a very busy week, lots of activities. Chris thought I would be crying during the ceremonies and all of the activities, but I was actually too busy taking pictures, serving cake, etc. to get emotional. I think that will be when we move him into his college dorm room, and the reality of his moving out, and our son on his own begins to sink in; we've raised him on our own for his whole life. Yet again, as an only child, I am used to being on my own, always have activities and hobbies to keep me busy, don't mind being alone; I will miss him, but will remain busy, already have several activities planned that I have been putting off for a long time.
